Republicans’ House majority is their smallest in decades, and shrinking
Republicans are entering a months-long stretch of legislating with their smallest House majority in decades. And the margin is about to tighten even more.
Departures from the House have whittled down the Republican caucus from 222 to 219, meaning the party can only afford to lose two members and still pass legislation when everyone is attending and voting.
Another Republican, Rep. Ken Buck (Colo.), announced Tuesday that he would vacate his seat at the end of next week.
Meanwhile, Congress is staring down a deadline next Friday to fund about 70 percent of the government — including the Defense, State and Homeland Security departments. It could further complicate a stalled border security bill and aid package for Ukraine and Israel.
Democrats are likely to add another lawmaker to their ranks after a special election in a deep-blue, Buffalo-area district in late April. The next special election in a red district isn’t until May 21.
"Speaker Johnson! How do you legislate with such a slim majority?"
"That's the neat part: you don't."
"We legislate with obstruction, same as every year that we don't hold both houses and the Presidency."
Let's be real, also when they hold both houses
Repubes have given up on legislating a long time ago. Now it’s all about theatrics and shit flinging
I believe we ought to take a leaf from the Arch-Conservative's book to address the big issue
"No actually, we don't have to negotiate a new budget with you to keep the government funded and running, that would be stupid and a compromise of national security."
And they still get most everything they want; whereas when Dems are in charge they have to make up obscure reasons (example: Oh Noe!!! The Parlimentarian won't let us do it!!!111) why they can't pass popular legislation.
It's easier when "everything they want" is just to shit the bed and blame others for it.
And even though Dems are the minority, they're still the ones doing all the work to keep the lights on.
ah yes, the "Amber Heard" platform
Did you read the article? There's a chart that shows that Democrats have only controlled the House for 8 of the past 24 years. And half of that time they didn't control the presidency. 2009 - 11 and 21 - 23 were the only times when they had both (4 years).
Now add the Senate in there and the time window shrinks even more. It's hard to do anything when people don't fucking vote.
Fucking vote. I don't care what your excuse is. Vote.
Democrats have had a trifecta capable of passing any legislation for like 5 of the last 40 years IIRC, and for most of those it was the Bill Clinton Era Dems who think pulling back a bloody stump isn't any reason to stop reaching across the aisle ever.
The past trifecta was the first time since Johnson where we had even a modicum of progressive ambition in a position to make some change, and out of it we got the American Rescue Plan and the Inflation Reduction Act, and the reason we didn't get more is because of two senators who aren't coming back anymore, and the archaic accidental rule they were defending with exactly zero actually good reason.
Like seriously, the white left will try to deride "just keep voting" as if 1) voting is some Herculean labor they should be patted on the back for instead of the bare minimum to be called an ally instead of an ally aesthetic chaser, and 2) voting isn't something that has to be done regularly to keep momentum behind any gains made.
Basically, liberals have not controlled all 3 in a very long time.
Paraphrasing Manchin, if you want a progressive, vote for a progressive.
The only way we're going to make any progress is by voting more (liberal) Democrats in.
And also by running as more progressive and leftist Democrats, AOC lit the way for us, if the few oldies who are with us can't make it, then we should go and do it ourselves.
Oh yeah, that one was incredibly frustrating since the parliamentarian is just an advisory position with no binding authority. They literally could've done the "oh no, anyway" routine and gotten good legislation passed but they decided optics were more important.
But she was the first female parliamentarian. They couldn't possibly do that, or replace her. She was doing such an important job: the job of being the first female parliamentarian. Think of all the little girls who, every day, look up to her as the first female parliamentarian, and then to see her not listened to by Chuck Schumer. What will all of those little girls think?
/s because that's apparently necessary to spell out